


The Ways to Connect

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars Saucy Sides [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Healthy Relationships, adult conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24403882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Things change, a little, once they're no longer Captain and Lieutenant.A Somewhat Saucy Side, set nebulously after Ever After, Happily
Relationships: CT-6116 | Kix/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Soft Wars Saucy Sides [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701715
Comments: 11
Kudos: 170





	The Ways to Connect

Rex slips between Kix’s thighs like a dream and folds quietly to his knees like a revelation.

“Well now,” Kix croaks. He almost wishes he hadn’t. The words feel trite, insignificant.

Hyperspace drags alternating flashes of bright and shadow through the six-seater cockpit of their transport. Under the touch of stars Rex glows silverish and ethereal. There’s something holy in the moment, something crouched on the edge of a prayer.

It feels like sacrilege, for Kix to put hands on him. It’s the worst sort of hubris to want to.

“Did I get it right?” Rex asks and knows he has. Knows, somehow, when even Kix hadn’t.

“You’ve been planning this.”

Rex eyes flutter closed and he breathes as though his lungs have been wrung dry of every molecule of air. “You know I couldn’t make the first move,” he warns and there’s a universe unsaid hidden between the words. That he wanted to make that move. That he’s _been_ wanting to. That where they were, where they stood, they were there because that was where Kix was comfortable. That if they moved, it must also be because Kix was comfortable.

Kix wanted this man under his hands. He hadn’t known he wanted him on his knees.

He asked for one. He now has both.

Spidersilk eyelashes flutter soft under Kix’s fingers, full dry lips part a sigh under a gently curious thumb. Warm cheeks turn into Kix’s palm. They fit, like they were made for him.

Rex is pliant and biddable like he is nowhere else, for no one else. He follows the tips of Kix fingers up, flows through the widening of Kix’s legs to let them settle knee-to-ribs, molds arms across Kix’s lap. When he slides out of his shirt it’s as if it was inevitable.

That stretch of gorgeous gold skin shouldn’t be for Kix. He’s a thief, stealing these sights, but still Kix takes. Hands down his back, across his shoulders, around the gentle curve of his head. Every inch of him fills Kix’s palms, as though by design. 

It’s deception, Kix thinks, for a lie of omission is no less a lie. It’s when Rex presses the first soft kisses along the line of Kix’s hip bones that Kix finds his conscience enough to pull back.

“I don’t want to have sex with you,” he confesses. It took years of contemplative hours, of turning the thought over and over in his mind until the words describing concepts didn’t make sense anymore. Kix had peeled apart the ideals of connection, of touching bodies and souls and tried to find himself a balance in the mix.

“I know.” More and more soft kisses bestowed on Kix’s vulnerable belly; the length of Rex’s back exposed to Kix’s hungry gaze. Kix closes his eyes. Swallows.

Of course Rex knows. How much of Kix did the captain figure out before Kix did?

“But I’d still like to touch you, if that’s alright.”

Vode know the difference between body and self. They know the difference between sex and connection. That intimacy can be found anywhere in the intersections of themselves, however they intersect.

Kix doesn’t want to have sex with Rex. He craves this intimacy like a dying man craves fractions of seconds.

“I’d like that.”

All things for his men, Jesse told Kix once, and Hardcase and Fives and Echo too. All things for his men, and it was a wonderment wrapped in worry. Rex gives himself to his own freely. They talk, they compare. They fear. He’s giving them everything they need but what does he take for himself?

“Can you get what you need from just that?”

It’s slow enough to not feel like a pulling away, when Rex sits back on his heels. His hands find Kix’s thighs and grip. His smile is soft, indulgent. Fond.

“It’s not a _just_ , Kix,” he chides so sweetly it can’t quite hold the shape of correction. “Stop trying to wonder if it’s _enough_. It’s you and me, it’s right here and right now and it’s us liking to have our hands on each other.”

His hands are body warm and rough, when they slide under Kix’s loose cotton shirt. They span Kix’s waist, as if made for that.

“You like sex.”

“I do. And I feel like in the past couple years I’ve maybe figured out where to find it, when I want.”

Kisses are sloppier when you’re laughing, but they taste far better.

“I don’t want to have sex with you,” Kix confesses. “But I do want to touch you. And I wouldn’t mind the occasional kiss, if you’re amenable.”

“I think I can possibly manage,” Rex assures.

“And I want this. You like this. On your knees.”

Rex settles on his knees between Kix’s legs like a dream fulfilled. He rests a cheek against the inside of Kix’s thigh and stares up through his lashes like a temptor. “I don’t know Kix. Might be a step too far.”

Kix folds around him like a supplicant. He tastes Rex’s smile and loves it.


End file.
